For many years, what I read about Monet seemed to indicate an artist with a prodigious work ethic, who went about the labor of his profession without the hindrance of temperament. His unwavering focus was almost intimidating. Finally, I read a book which described his behavior on the bad weather days - when he couldn't go out to paint the landscape. According to this book, at such times Monet was so inconsolable that he wouldn't get out of bed. What a relief to find him human!
He had to have the best eyesight in human history. What Cezanne was to cerebral painting, Monet was to visual painting. Cezanne supposedly said of him, "Monet is just an eye - but God, what an eye!" His placement of forms, large and miniscule, was so precise that everything in the image was perfectly formed and placed, just like it is when we see it in nature. But anyone who has ever painted, particularly landscapes, knows that to achieve the same coherence on a blank canvas is not nearly as easy as Monet makes it look. The forms and colors are constantly misbehaving, in the wrong places, with the wrong color.